Laura Wallen Cause Of Death Revealed: Autopsy Shows Cold-Blooded Method Of Teacher’s Murder, Boyfriend Charged
Laura Wallen, the beloved 31-year-old high school teacher from Olney, Maryland, who went missing last week, was murdered in cold blood, an autopsy has revealed. Wallen, who was four months pregnant at the time of her disappearance, was found buried in a shallow grave on Wednesday, in a secluded field tucked into the woods near Prices Distillery Road in Damascus, Maryland, according to a report by WTTG News in Washington, D.C..
Wallen was shot in the back of the head — execution style — her autopsy showed, according to a later WTTG report.
Investigators now say that the chilling murder was the result of a love triangle situation, WTTG reported. The father of Wallen’s unborn child, her boyfriend Tyler Tessier, 32, has been charged with murdering the popular Wilde Lake High School social studies teacher. According to a report in the Baltimore Sun newspaper, Tessier was not only in a relationship with Wallen, and had recently asked her to marry him, but the man was simultaneously engaged to a second woman.
Neither Wallen nor the other woman was aware that Tessier, who works as a landscaper, was carrying on both relationships at the same time, police say. Tessier had appeared at a press conference with Wallen’s parents on Monday, where he was seen holding the hand of Wallen’s mother and pleading for the safe return of the woman whom police say that he, himself, had murdered just days earlier.
Autopsy: Slain pregnant teacher #LauraWallen was shot in back of the head https://t.co/SH9CJuGFT6
— Tom Fitzgerald (@FitzFox5DC) September 15, 2017
But even though the family made a show of unity with Tessier at the Monday press conference, they now say that they suspected from the beginning — 11 days ago, when Wallen first disappeared — that the boyfriend had killed her, according to statements they made to the Washington Post.
“He is a monster and he is liar,” the slain pregnant woman’s father, Mark Wallen, told the Post. “It was all we could do to be seen as a unified family with him. And it was absolutely the hardest thing that my wife could do would be to sit next to him and hold his hand. And she had to hold his hand with two hands because she was shaking so badly.”
Police also suspected Tessier starting on September 4, the last day that Wallen was seen alive. According to the Post report, investigators interviewed him repeatedly and found that Tessier’s story varied and changed with successive tellings. They also were suspicious of why he made several trips to a remote area in Damascus, the same area where Wallen’s body was later discovered, and why he did not immediately reveal that he was in a separate, simultaneous relationship that he kept secret from Wallen.
The following video report contains further details on the Laura Wallen case.
Mark Wallen told WRC News that the only topic that caused fights between his daughter and her family was her relationship with Tessier, who never won the family’s approval. The elder Wallen said that Tessier “has been deceiving and lying their entire existence.”
Though Laura Wallen did not know that Tessier was engaged to the other woman, she knew that the woman had been in a past relationship with him. On August 28, Wallen sent the other woman a text message to set up a meeting between the two. Whether that text led to Wallen’s murder remains unclear. Police have not said exactly what they believe the motive for Tessier to kill Wallen to be — or whether the other woman in the love triangle was involved in Wallen’s slaying in any way.
[Featured Image By Montgomery County Police Department/AP Images]
